Ticks - Tumblr Posts
Some tips about ticks for y'all who aren't super familiar with them, since I fear them a little and thus arm myself with knowledge:
- wear long, light-coloured, non-patterned clothing when camping/in close proximity to tall grass and trees to prevent ticks from easily reaching your skin, while also making them easy to spot on your clothes
- always check yourself and your clothes after going into the woods. Ticks like to lodge themselves in warm places (eg. behind your ears, on your neck, behind your knee, in your elbow, in your armpit, in your crotch, between your toes) but hair in those places usually deters them.
- ticks may wander a bit before they find a place to dig in, so finding a tick several hours after an excursion is common
- for those of you who've never seen or had one, a tick can be very small. At their smallest, they look like a piece of dirt with legs, but they can be bigger as well. The defining feature of a tick that has bitten you is that it has legs and can't be shaken off (don't try to brush them off unless their head isn't buried in your skin, or you'll risk squeezing them)
- if you get a tick, tweezers are probably your best bet. I've seen places selling tick removers or tick keys, but these don't work very well for ticks who have just taken hold. The flame and rubbing alcohol methods also seem pretty effective, but I've never seen them used before so I can't say for sure, and you may not always have that stuff on hand.
- gently pull your skin taught where the tick is so you have clear access to its neck. DO NOT GRAB THE BODY ITSELF. Squeezing their body will make them throw up and you greatly increase your risk of getting Lyme disease if that happens.
- grab as close as you can to your skin, then carefully pull out the tick. Even if the head stays in your skin, so long as the body (and by extension, the stomach) no longer has access to you, you're relatively safe. Tweezers can also help you remove the head.
- sanitize your skin and the tweezers, then put a band-aid over the bite
- a tick needs to have been feeding for 36-48 hours before you're at risk of getting Lyme disease from them, so as long as you spot them early, you should be fine. The size of a tick indicates how long it's been feeding, so the bigger it is, the longer it's been there.
- for those of you who don't regularly get ticks, you may want to keep yours around in case it needs to get tested. My preferred method of preserving a tick is to put it on a clear piece of tape, then seal it in with another piece of tape placed perpendicular to the first one. However, this may not be the most accessible method, so using a small plastic bag or container also works well.
- I'm not sure about other places, but where I live they often won't even test ticks anymore because the majority of them carry Lyme now, so it's easier just to assume that the tick had Lyme and work from there. However, this doesn't mean you shouldn't bother going to the doctor. There are antibiotics available if you go in and ask for them, which you can do (at least in Canada), even if you aren't showing symptoms. If you plan to do this, do it within a couple days of getting the tick. There are also antibiotics available for early stage Lyme disease, so if you notice symptoms early, there's still ways to recover.
- symptoms of Lyme disease may be similar to those of the flu, and usually start between 3-30 days. The bullseye rash is not guaranteed to develop if you have Lyme, so don't assume you don't have it just because you don't have the rash. Other symptoms to be on the lookout for are fever, chills, headaches, fatigue, and muscle/joint aches. If I recall correctly, Lyme attacks the nervous system, so the unusual amounts of fatigue and muscle pain are particularly important indicators to watch out for.
- black-legged ticks, also known as deer ticks, are the ones that spread Lyme, so if your tick isn't a deer tick, you're probably safe. I'm not going to include images in case people don't want to see them, but if you get a tick you can look up deer ticks to see if that's what you have.
- sources: things I've learned from working at a provincial park, and also source, source, source, source
Feel free to add on or correct me if I got anything wrong. Happy camping, and stay safe y'all!
I think the wildest piece of advice I encounter semi-frequently is to “have a doctor remove a tick” that’s bitten you.
Like yeah hang on let me just. Pop on down to visit my personal doctor who lives in my root cellar and tends to my every need and comes running when I ring a little bell. I’ll have them remove this tick from my arm.
This isnt even an “American healthcare is bad” post. I can’t comprehend a lifestyle in which having a doctor remove ticks for you would be practical unless you are married to one. Have people who write this advice ever even had a tick? Or, hell, been to a doctor? Best case scenario you’d be waiting hours.
“See the person not the disability”
NO! SEE MY DISABILITY! IT IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF MY LIFE THAT SHOULD BE ACKNOWLEDGED! OF ALL THE ABLEIST CRAP THIS IS THE WORST ONE!
I'm trying to write a post about tick safety and avoiding tick bites, but a lot of the info on websites is like "Avoid going in the woods, in plants, and where there are wild animals" and "Activities like hiking and gardening can put you at risk" and I'm like thanks! This is worthless!
As ticks and tick borne illnesses are expanding their range, I think it's important for people to be educated about these things, and I think it's especially important to give people actual advice on how to protect themselves instead of telling them to just...avoid the natural world
Rough draft version of Tick Advice:
Ticks don't jump down on you from trees, they get on you when you brush against grass, brush, bushes etc.
Ticks get brought to an area when they get done feeding from an animal and fall off them. In the USA, the main tick-bringing animal is deer, but I've seen plenty ticks on feral cats and songbirds.
Ticks get killed when they dry out so drier areas with more sunlight are less favorable to ticks.
The above is useful for figuring out whether an area is likely to have lots of ticks, and how vigilant you have to be in that area.
Wear light-colored, long pants outside. Tuck your pants into your socks, and tuck your shirt into the waist of your pants. Invest in light, breathable fabrics idc
IMMEDIATELY change out of your outside clothes when you come back from a tick-prone area, wash them, and dry them on high heat to kill any ticks that might be stuck on.
Shower and check yourself for ticks after coming inside. Hair, armpits, and nether regions in particular. You can use a handheld mirror or rely on touch; an attached tick will feel like a bump kinda like a scab
While you're outside, you can just periodically check for ticks by running your hands down your legs and checking visually to see if anything is crawling on your clothes. Light colors make them easy to spot, and they don't move fast.
Combing through each others' hair to check for creepy crawly critters is a time-honored primate ritual and is not weird. When hiking, bring a friend who will have your back when you feel something on your neck and need to know if it's sweat or a tick
If you're careful, you can usually catch ticks before they bite you, but if one does bite you, it's not the end of the world. Since tickborne diseases are different regionally i suspect this advice will differ based on where you are, but the important thing is remove the tick with tweezers (DON'T use butter, a lit match, or anything that kills the tick while it's still attached, please) and contact a doctor to see what to watch for. Most illnesses you can catch from ticks are easily treatable if you recognize them when symptoms first appear
I curse him out aloud sometimes. From a memory or a feeling or just general unhappiness.
It's confusing for everyone.
How do I eliminate all thoughts of him?
I still think about him basically every time I get a quiet moment: in a fitting room, at a red light, in my office, in the shower.
Recovery is a bitch.
I'm trying to write a post about tick safety and avoiding tick bites, but a lot of the info on websites is like "Avoid going in the woods, in plants, and where there are wild animals" and "Activities like hiking and gardening can put you at risk" and I'm like thanks! This is worthless!
As ticks and tick borne illnesses are expanding their range, I think it's important for people to be educated about these things, and I think it's especially important to give people actual advice on how to protect themselves instead of telling them to just...avoid the natural world
Rough draft version of Tick Advice:
Ticks don't jump down on you from trees, they get on you when you brush against grass, brush, bushes etc.
Ticks get brought to an area when they get done feeding from an animal and fall off them. In the USA, the main tick-bringing animal is deer, but I've seen plenty ticks on feral cats and songbirds.
Ticks get killed when they dry out so drier areas with more sunlight are less favorable to ticks.
The above is useful for figuring out whether an area is likely to have lots of ticks, and how vigilant you have to be in that area.
Wear light-colored, long pants outside. Tuck your pants into your socks, and tuck your shirt into the waist of your pants. Invest in light, breathable fabrics idc
IMMEDIATELY change out of your outside clothes when you come back from a tick-prone area, wash them, and dry them on high heat to kill any ticks that might be stuck on.
Shower and check yourself for ticks after coming inside. Hair, armpits, and nether regions in particular. You can use a handheld mirror or rely on touch; an attached tick will feel like a bump kinda like a scab
While you're outside, you can just periodically check for ticks by running your hands down your legs and checking visually to see if anything is crawling on your clothes. Light colors make them easy to spot, and they don't move fast.
Combing through each others' hair to check for creepy crawly critters is a time-honored primate ritual and is not weird. When hiking, bring a friend who will have your back when you feel something on your neck and need to know if it's sweat or a tick
If you're careful, you can usually catch ticks before they bite you, but if one does bite you, it's not the end of the world. Since tickborne diseases are different regionally i suspect this advice will differ based on where you are, but the important thing is remove the tick with tweezers (DON'T use butter, a lit match, or anything that kills the tick while it's still attached, please) and contact a doctor to see what to watch for. Most illnesses you can catch from ticks are easily treatable if you recognize them when symptoms first appear
I'm trying to write a post about tick safety and avoiding tick bites, but a lot of the info on websites is like "Avoid going in the woods, in plants, and where there are wild animals" and "Activities like hiking and gardening can put you at risk" and I'm like thanks! This is worthless!
As ticks and tick borne illnesses are expanding their range, I think it's important for people to be educated about these things, and I think it's especially important to give people actual advice on how to protect themselves instead of telling them to just...avoid the natural world
Rough draft version of Tick Advice:
Ticks don't jump down on you from trees, they get on you when you brush against grass, brush, bushes etc.
Ticks get brought to an area when they get done feeding from an animal and fall off them. In the USA, the main tick-bringing animal is deer, but I've seen plenty ticks on feral cats and songbirds.
Ticks get killed when they dry out so drier areas with more sunlight are less favorable to ticks.
The above is useful for figuring out whether an area is likely to have lots of ticks, and how vigilant you have to be in that area.
Wear light-colored, long pants outside. Tuck your pants into your socks, and tuck your shirt into the waist of your pants. Invest in light, breathable fabrics idc
IMMEDIATELY change out of your outside clothes when you come back from a tick-prone area, wash them, and dry them on high heat to kill any ticks that might be stuck on.
Shower and check yourself for ticks after coming inside. Hair, armpits, and nether regions in particular. You can use a handheld mirror or rely on touch; an attached tick will feel like a bump kinda like a scab
While you're outside, you can just periodically check for ticks by running your hands down your legs and checking visually to see if anything is crawling on your clothes. Light colors make them easy to spot, and they don't move fast.
Combing through each others' hair to check for creepy crawly critters is a time-honored primate ritual and is not weird. When hiking, bring a friend who will have your back when you feel something on your neck and need to know if it's sweat or a tick
If you're careful, you can usually catch ticks before they bite you, but if one does bite you, it's not the end of the world. Since tickborne diseases are different regionally i suspect this advice will differ based on where you are, but the important thing is remove the tick with tweezers (DON'T use butter, a lit match, or anything that kills the tick while it's still attached, please) and contact a doctor to see what to watch for. Most illnesses you can catch from ticks are easily treatable if you recognize them when symptoms first appear
Brakuje mi tu skorpiona...
Scorpion is missing in my opinion...
Mountains and Moorlands. Written by Arnold Darlington. 1978.
Someone: Very clearly, explicitly explains that every single species of invertebrate is important in some way to the environment and how insect populations keep dropping which could literally cause ecological collapse if they were to all go extinct
Some absolute genius, every single fucking time: This is it......... This is the perfect post to talk about how much I hate mosquitos/ticks/spiders/wasps on and go "Haha but those icky bad evil mean bugs I hate are an exception right lol???"
I hate it so much when people ask me to repeat my vocal ticks, when they didn't understand what it just said.
no I won't repeat something that has no bearing on our conversation, is cringe to repeat because I don't know if you knew it's a tick or not (it's actually very easy to tell if it's a tick or not but idk), and is just generally uncomfortable because just saying random shit is uncomfortable.
I'm trying to write a post about tick safety and avoiding tick bites, but a lot of the info on websites is like "Avoid going in the woods, in plants, and where there are wild animals" and "Activities like hiking and gardening can put you at risk" and I'm like thanks! This is worthless!
As ticks and tick borne illnesses are expanding their range, I think it's important for people to be educated about these things, and I think it's especially important to give people actual advice on how to protect themselves instead of telling them to just...avoid the natural world
Rough draft version of Tick Advice:
Ticks don't jump down on you from trees, they get on you when you brush against grass, brush, bushes etc.
Ticks get brought to an area when they get done feeding from an animal and fall off them. In the USA, the main tick-bringing animal is deer, but I've seen plenty ticks on feral cats and songbirds.
Ticks get killed when they dry out so drier areas with more sunlight are less favorable to ticks.
The above is useful for figuring out whether an area is likely to have lots of ticks, and how vigilant you have to be in that area.
Wear light-colored, long pants outside. Tuck your pants into your socks, and tuck your shirt into the waist of your pants. Invest in light, breathable fabrics idc
IMMEDIATELY change out of your outside clothes when you come back from a tick-prone area, wash them, and dry them on high heat to kill any ticks that might be stuck on.
Shower and check yourself for ticks after coming inside. Hair, armpits, and nether regions in particular. You can use a handheld mirror or rely on touch; an attached tick will feel like a bump kinda like a scab
While you're outside, you can just periodically check for ticks by running your hands down your legs and checking visually to see if anything is crawling on your clothes. Light colors make them easy to spot, and they don't move fast.
Combing through each others' hair to check for creepy crawly critters is a time-honored primate ritual and is not weird. When hiking, bring a friend who will have your back when you feel something on your neck and need to know if it's sweat or a tick
If you're careful, you can usually catch ticks before they bite you, but if one does bite you, it's not the end of the world. Since tickborne diseases are different regionally i suspect this advice will differ based on where you are, but the important thing is remove the tick with tweezers (DON'T use butter, a lit match, or anything that kills the tick while it's still attached, please) and contact a doctor to see what to watch for. Most illnesses you can catch from ticks are easily treatable if you recognize them when symptoms first appear
My kid about her first hand experience with chiggers, “I’m sad that chiggers are really real”
Same
I'm trying to write a post about tick safety and avoiding tick bites, but a lot of the info on websites is like "Avoid going in the woods, in plants, and where there are wild animals" and "Activities like hiking and gardening can put you at risk" and I'm like thanks! This is worthless!
As ticks and tick borne illnesses are expanding their range, I think it's important for people to be educated about these things, and I think it's especially important to give people actual advice on how to protect themselves instead of telling them to just...avoid the natural world
Rough draft version of Tick Advice:
Ticks don't jump down on you from trees, they get on you when you brush against grass, brush, bushes etc.
Ticks get brought to an area when they get done feeding from an animal and fall off them. In the USA, the main tick-bringing animal is deer, but I've seen plenty ticks on feral cats and songbirds.
Ticks get killed when they dry out so drier areas with more sunlight are less favorable to ticks.
The above is useful for figuring out whether an area is likely to have lots of ticks, and how vigilant you have to be in that area.
Wear light-colored, long pants outside. Tuck your pants into your socks, and tuck your shirt into the waist of your pants. Invest in light, breathable fabrics idc
IMMEDIATELY change out of your outside clothes when you come back from a tick-prone area, wash them, and dry them on high heat to kill any ticks that might be stuck on.
Shower and check yourself for ticks after coming inside. Hair, armpits, and nether regions in particular. You can use a handheld mirror or rely on touch; an attached tick will feel like a bump kinda like a scab
While you're outside, you can just periodically check for ticks by running your hands down your legs and checking visually to see if anything is crawling on your clothes. Light colors make them easy to spot, and they don't move fast.
Combing through each others' hair to check for creepy crawly critters is a time-honored primate ritual and is not weird. When hiking, bring a friend who will have your back when you feel something on your neck and need to know if it's sweat or a tick
If you're careful, you can usually catch ticks before they bite you, but if one does bite you, it's not the end of the world. Since tickborne diseases are different regionally i suspect this advice will differ based on where you are, but the important thing is remove the tick with tweezers (DON'T use butter, a lit match, or anything that kills the tick while it's still attached, please) and contact a doctor to see what to watch for. Most illnesses you can catch from ticks are easily treatable if you recognize them when symptoms first appear
TICK PSA
Alright you guys, ‘tis the season again and I’ve already seen bullshit float about so here we go: what to do and what not to do when you happen to have a tick attached to yours truly.
WHAT NOT TO DO:
DON’T cover the tick in anything. Vaseline, nailpolish, whatever. Doesn’t matter. It’ll all suffocate the tick, making it panic vomit germs into your blood stream. That’s the opposite of what you want.
DON’T burn the tick. Same problem, plus the additional option of giving yourself a burn wound in the process.
DON’T squeeze the body of the tick when you try to remove it. Again this empties the tick’s digestive system into your body. Bad.
DON’T wait for the tick to detach itself. The longer it stays on you, the higher the chances it’ll transmit anything to you. Plus when ti detaches it may again vomit germs into you.
WHAT TO ACTUALLY DO
STAY CALM. A tick hanging on you is not a reason to panick. You’re not going to keel over just like that, and if you’re unsure what to do, there are many resources on the internet on how to safely remove a tick, like this one from the CDC (aka the professionals)
USE APPROPRIATE TOOLS. These can be suitable tweezers (the pointy kind, not blunt tipped ones), tick removers (there are cheap ones out there, those you can buy at the vets are totally fine for use on humans, too!). Ideally you can remove the entire tick in one go, however if that doesn’t work and the mouth part breaks off in your skin, that’s not a terribly big deal and you can totally remove it separately after you got the body remove. Again, don’t panic.
KILL THE REMOVED TICK. But not by squeezing it. Flush it down the toilet, submerse it in alcohol in a container etc. Ideally if the tick has bitten you and not your dog, keep the tick around in a sealed container in case you start having symptoms and someone needs to identify the tick species. Also IF you start getting symptoms like the tell tale Lyme disease rash, HIT A DOCTOR RIGHT AWAY AND TELL THEM ABOUT YOUR TICK BITE. Do not wait this out, ticks can transmit a whole host of diseases beside Lyme, so be mindful of that, too!
Some of those diseases you can actually get vaccinated again, such as tick born encephalitis. Check with the local authorities if you live in a risk area, and if so, get the shots to protect yourself.